Landscape photographer Kelly Thayer spent a June summer morning hiking a trail on the east side of Mount Wrightson about forty miles south of Tucson, Arizona. The fifty-two-year-old fitness nut took dozens of photos of the mountain with her Nikon camera. She planned a freelance article for a travel magazine.

While on a steep trail, Kelly fell and disappeared.

In November Noel ‘Whizzer’ Barcroft met novelist J G Dekker at her favorite saloon in Chico, California. He invited her to his home on Lake Tahoe. Noel telephoned private investigator Dan Ballantine and asked him to do a background check on Dekker.

Dan cleared Dekker, and Whizzer insisted he and her sister, Sissy, travel with her to Dekker’s home.

Dekker performed a similar background check on Ballantine, and, after meeting him, hired him to verify his sister, missing five months, is dead.

Dan pulled his fifth-wheel travel trailer to Southern Arizona, and he and his dog, Penny, searched the trails. On his fourth day of trekking, Dan spotted a camera caught in a bush. Dekker verified it belonged to Kelly, and Dan found the final photo she took looked down on two men with large hats and rifles.

Dan commences a search for the men.

Book List